The present invention relates to an illegitimate duplication preventing method, data processing apparatus and medical imaging apparatus, and more particularly to a method of preventing illegitimate duplication of a program, and a data processing apparatus and medical imaging apparatus comprising means for preventing illegitimate duplication of a program.
A program in a data processing apparatus is protected by measures for preventing illegitimate duplication. One such technique is to make a program executable by a user writing specific information such as a product ID (identification) code into the program during installation of the program into the data processing apparatus. Another technique involves storing specific information input by a user into the data processing apparatus, and justifying the user by the program checking the information when it is executed.
Still other techniques include a method in which a flexible magnetic disk or the like that has key information stored in it is distributed along with a program and the program is configured so that it should always be used with the flexible magnetic disk, thereby ensuring that only a legitimate user, can use the program, and a method in which a specific hardware is distributed along with a program and the program is configured so that it becomes executable only when the hardware is incorporated into the data processing apparatus.
Among these conventional techniques, the method in which specific information is written into a program makes a change in a part of the program, and therefore the program may be corrupted due to a mistake or the like in writing the information, and in addition, the program does not have a function to avoid duplication after writing the information.
The method in which a program itself checks specific information written in the data processing apparatus requires a user to write complicated information, which is cumbersome, and a special processing procedure is needed in the program to interpret the information, thereby reducing efficiency.
On the other hand, the method involving concurrent use of a flexible magnetic disk has a problem that the information medium is not highly reliable, and the method involving concurrent use of a hardware increases costs and is more restricted in handling during distribution compared to programs or the like that can be distributed on-line via a network. Moreover, if the medium or the hardware is lost, the program cannot be used any more.